NASSIR Posted August 20, 2005 Somalian govt crisis 'not permanent' Mail $ Guardian online 17 August 2005 Nairobi, Kenya---Somalia's influential parliamentary speaker said on Wednesday he is working to resolve a crisis over the seat of the lawless country's transitional government and expressed confidence it will not be permanent. Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden, who represents one side in the bitter rift over where the government should be based, said the disagreement is only "political" and perhaps to be expected in a country trying to emerge from 14 years of anarchy. "I am making efforts to bring the political groups within the federal government together," Aden told reporters in Nairobi at the start of a visit at the invitation of his Kenyan counterpart, Francis Ole Kaparo. "The divisions are not permanent, they are only differences of political views on the rebuilding and setting up of a functioning administration, which we have not had for the past 14 years," he said. The crisis centres on where in Somalia the transitional government should base itself following its return to the country from exile in Kenya, where it had been located since its creation last year. Aden is part of a faction comprised of Mogadishu warlords, some MPs and Cabinet officials who insist the government make the capital its home, while transitional President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi say it is unsafe there. Yusuf and Gedi are now hunkered down in the provincial town of Jowhar, north of Mogadishu, where they believe the government should be located at least temporarily until the security situation in the capital is stabilised. Several efforts to end the stand-off have failed amid threats that the deadlock could lead to clashes between the two sides. -- Sapa-AFP Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
